JASON SACKOOR, ESQ.

So you want to be a real estate investor. You’ve been up at 2:00am watching infomercials about guys buying property for little or no money down and then selling that property for 5x or 10x returns. You watch those property flipping shows on HGTV where attractive couples from California or Nevada buy homes at foreclosure auctions, fix them up, and sell them for massive profits. How hard could it be? You’re smart, handy, and have a good eye for what’s fashionable. You coul

I’ve been getting a variation of this question a whole lot lately: “Do I have a right to be bought out of my interest in a house?” The common scenario goes like this: your parents owned a house and when they died, they either left the house to you and your siblings in a will. Maybe they transferred the house to you during their lives and retained a life estate. One of your siblings lives in the house rent free. You may be experiencing some financial difficulties of your ow

I received a call from a woman the other day who was looking for someone to help her modify her loan. As she began to describe her situation, her likelihood of successfully modifying this loan grew slimmer and slimmer. When I let her know that I wasn’t going to be able to help her with her problem and gave her all the reasons why, the gravity of her situation finally sunk in. It was heartbreaking. At the same time, she made pretty much every mistake you could make when yo